Thursday, November 5, 2015

Wow. I think I nearly
fell asleep while watching this episode.
That hasn’t happened since I watched ‘Nasty Habits.’ Maybe I just generally
find Rumpelstiltskin eccentric episodes boring when they’re presented more as a
side story instead of advancing the overall plot.

So, in Camelot, Killian, Charming, Merlin and Belle
infiltrate the dungeons, where they successfully free Lancelot. They also free Merida upon discovering she’s
also being held prisoner. This prison
break scene was one of the only moments in the episode where I actually felt
invested in what was going on. I really
love this take on Merlin. He is awesome,
and I REALLY hope he’s not written out of the show after this story arc. At this point, I’d be fine if we never see what
became of all the other minor storylines that the writers have forgotten about
(Jefferson and Grace, the relationship between Grumpy and Nova, and Anton and
the bean field to name a few) as long as Merlin can still be around when this
is all over. And it would be awesome for
them to have a resident magic expert in Storybrooke apart from Regina and
Rumple. Although, can Gold even qualify
as a magic expert now? You know, since
he’s an ordinary mortal man again. I
realize he remembers everything he’s done as the Dark One, but seeing as how he
wasn’t the least bit magical before his name appeared on the dagger, I don’t
think it would make much sense if he was able to use magic again.

Anyway, after being freed, Merida decides to thank the
Nevengers by kidnapping Belle with the intent to use her book smarts to concoct
the potion that will transform her into a bear.
One thing I did like about this moment is when Belle actually asks
Merida why she couldn’t have just asked for her help. Merida’s response was that she didn’t want to
take the chance Belle would say ‘no,’ which kind of makes sense, considering
Merida’s clearly desperate and doesn’t know Belle well enough. And it could possibly parallel what’s going
on with Merida and Dark One Emma in the Storybrooke plotline. I’ve now got a mental image of Merida trying
to chew out Emma for heart-compelling her at some point in the future, and Emma
apologizing, saying she couldn’t risk Merida refusing to help her willingly. I’d love to see the look on Merida’s face if
hearing that makes her remember her mini-quest with Belle, and how she more or
less treated Belle the same way.

The reason why Merida wants to turn into a bear is because
she believes it’s the only way she can save her brothers and convince the other
clans that she is worthy to be queen.
She eventually admits to Belle that the other clans began to question
her ability to rule over the clans when she failed to bring down an assassin
before he fatally wounded King Fergus.
And I admit, that was a pretty sad story. And I can sympathize with Merida on
this. If this version of Merida is
anything like her animated counterpart, she prided herself on being an expert
archer who never missed her target. And
the one time she did miss, it cost
her father’s life. I can’t imagine
living with something like that hanging over my head. So it’s not just the clans losing faith in
Merida that’s the problem, but Merida losing faith in herself as well. Belle obviously picks up on that, and knows
that using magic to solve the problem will not help the underlying
problem. Merida turning herself into a
bear will only show the clans she needs magic to be strong, and without it,
she’s got nothing. And it won’t help
restore Merida’s confidence, either. For
that reason, she switches the potion with a vial of water, preventing Merida
from turning herself into a bear.
However, when push comes to shove, Merida finally figures out that she
doesn’t need to become a bear when she’s able to deflect the arrows that were
shot at her brothers, who have obviously grown significantly. The fact that Merida can fire off her arrow
in such a way that it actually snaps the other three arrows in half proves to
the clans that she is indeed worthy of leading the clans. And on a deeper level, it helps Merida make
peace with the fact that she couldn’t save her father’s life. Honestly, I didn’t mind this flashback story
that much. It actually helped deliver a
pretty mature message that you can’t let one failure or setback destroy your
confidence. You just have to press on
with your head held high. I can’t find
fault with that.

It was the main storyline I had the problems with. Dark One Emma is still using Merida to turn
Gold into a hero. When Gold manages to
utilize the same method Emma used to escape her bounds in ‘The Hat Trick’ by sacrificing the chipped teacup (great, just when
I was actually starting to make peace with the notion of never seeing Jefferson
again, they go and remind me of his debut episode), Dark One Emma decides to up
the ante by ordering Merida to go after Belle directly. In a desperate attempt to keep Belle alive,
Gold plans to drive them both over the town line, relying on a bag of magic
powder to protect them from the barrier spell that would turn them into
trees. But Belle refuses to abide with
this decision, stating that running from a problem is never the right
answer. They go back and forth a bit
until Gold up and admits that he’ll always be a coward that will constantly run
away from danger. Belle is clearly not
pleased with seeing this side of him, so she refuses to get back in the car
with him. Instead, she begins to walk
back to Storybrooke, where she is greeted by Merida, who ends up drinking the
potion that was brewed in the episode’s flashback, prompting her to turn into
Bearida. Bearida ends up attacking Belle
until Gold suddenly reappears. He ends
up stopping Bearida by throwing his bag of magic powder at her, which causes
her to revert back to human form. Merida
leads Gold and Belle back to the underground chamber where Excalibur resides,
and Gold, after a brief exchange with Dark One Emma and a whole ‘if this doesn’t work, goodbye Belle’
speech, ends up pulling out Excalibur.

Okay, so now everyone is all ‘oh, Gold’s a hero now.’ I’m
sorry, but… no. He’s really not. Yeah, he came back to try and save Belle,
which is great. But one good deed
doesn’t make you a hero, especially after you’ve spent centuries inflicting
pain and suffering on a lot of people.
Being a hero is a lifestyle. It’s
someone choosing repeatedly to do the right thing. In addition, I’m not sure how his actions in
the forest were supposed to earn him any hero points. So he saved Belle. As great as that is, it’s pretty much the same
thing as when he chose to die to save her and Nealfirebagelperson from Pan at
the end of the Neverland arc. No one was
calling him a hero after that. So why is
this any different? Was it because he
threw the magic powder at Bearida?
Because I fail to see how that constitutes as an act of bravery. It was more an act of self-preservation than
anything. Unless the act of bravery was
him finally admitting that he was a big pants-wetting coward who crippled
himself in the Ogre Wars because he didn’t want to die. Because I can see how admitting that could be
considered brave. Even so, just because
he did good in this episode doesn’t mean he’s going to continue that
pattern. He’s still got quite a lot to
do before he can really prove himself worthy of being an official member of the
Nevengers. For starters, does he have
anything of merit to bring to the table?
Charming and Killian are both skilled swordsmen, Snow and Robin are
expert archers, and Emma and Regina wield formidable magic. In addition, Henry is able to come up with
some pretty clever plans, and Belle has extensive book knowledge that can be
hugely beneficial when they’re facing some manner of unknown. But even though Henry and Belle are more or
less the thinkers/strategists of the team, they’ve also had their moments to
shine in terms of being where the action is.
Just look at ‘The Outsider’
flashback as well as the majority of Henry’s time in Isaac’s AU world if you
don’t believe me. But what’s Gold got in
the way of practical skills, now that he’s back to being a mortal man with no
magical prowess? Unless something
happens that will take away that self-inflicted limp of his, I can’t see him
being able to hold his own too well in actual combat. And his magical knowhow might also have been
directly linked to the presence of the Dark One’s essence inside him. Now that he's not the Dark One, he might not even have that knowledge anymore. In fact, his defeat of Bearida only occurred because
he just happened to have a bag of
magic powder within reach. So what’s
Gold going to do the next time he’s called up to bat? Hope there’s another bag of magic powder
nearby for him to throw? This also contradicts
the message from the Flashback story.
They made it a point that Merida couldn’t rely on a magical solution to
her problem. And here, that’s exactly
what Gold had to do to escape the ordeal with Bearida- he relied on magic to
solve the problem while not doing anything on his own. Again, Gold’s still got a ways to go before
he can really prove himself as an actual hero.
As for the whole pulling out Excalibur thing? It’s not as impressive when you remember
Arthur also managed to do so, and he’s nowhere close to being a real hero. In all honesty, I’m fully expecting Gold to
do what Arthur did, in letting all this go to his head, which will result in
him getting all haughty and too sure of himself. And I think we can all agree arrogance and
true heroism are not good bedfellows.
Besides, Gold virtually threatening Emma’s life at the end was not
exactly the act of a hero. A REAL hero
would actually join the Nevengers in trying to find a way to save Emma from the Darkness, not imply
they plan on killing her. Not to mention
Gold had a taste of being a hero before in Isaac’s AU world. And in the end, he chose to behave like a
villain when he resorted to attempted murder to protect his cozy lifestyle. So,
I’m really not buying this whole ‘Gold’s
a hero, and the fact that he pulled out Excalibur proves it’ nonsense. There’s gotta be more to this story that we
haven’t got yet.

I’m also really irritated with Belle in the main
storyline. Now that the Nevengers know
they managed to free Merlin in Camelot, they decide to contact him with the
magic toadstool Charming re-found a few episodes ago, to figure out why Emma is
still plagued by the Darkness. But Belle
is all ‘no, we gotta go save Rumple
first!’ Now, I completely understand
that she’s worried about him. But in
this scene, she just comes across as a total b-word. She’s all ‘why should we focus on helping Emma when she’s no better than Rumple?’ Seriously, Belle? Are you really reverting back to the persona
you maintained before the Author arc?
The one where you totally excuse every single horrible thing your
wayward husband did? So much for the
character growth you displayed when you finally put your foot down at the end
of ‘Heroes and Villains’ and kicked
him to the curb. It’s particularly
disturbing that she’s actually stating Dark One Emma is equally bad as Dark One
Rumpelstiltskin. Even though Emma’s
only been the Dark One for roughly two months while Rumple was wreaking havoc
for centuries. And so far, the stuff
we’ve seen Emma do as the Dark One are actually pretty tame in comparison to
what Dark One Rumpelstiltskin got up to.
Top that off with the fact that Rumpelstiltskin became the Dark One
after committing arson and murder and embraced the power right away, while Emma
became the Dark One when she sacrificed herself to save the whole town and
actually tried to resist giving into the lure of the Darkness. Of course, we thankfully had Killian to
diplomatically remind Belle that she had given Dark One Rumpelstiltskin
multiple chances to turn himself around, so it would be unfair of her to not
give Emma at least one. But Belle just
basically sniffed and sauntered off with her nose in the air. Again, I get she wants to make sure Gold gets
out of this all right, since she never stopped loving the man, but her actions
in this scene really made it seem like she doesn’t care about anyone else except Gold. Which makes what she later tells Gold when
he’s trying to leave Storybrooke nothing short of laughable. She actually mentions the fact that there
were people they cared about in town.
Oh, really, Belle? You mean the
same people you refused to stand with earlier?
Believe me, I really do want to like Belle, but she was really
inconsistent in this episode. I’m really
hoping the friendship between Belle and Killian doesn’t suffer from the events
of this episode. After all, Killian, despite the long and bitter vendetta between the two men, has
previously made efforts to reach out to Gold for Belle’s sake. (His ‘she truly loves you’ speech comes to mind.) And Emma’s only in the state she is in now
because she willingly sacrificed herself in the attempt to save Gold when the
Darkness was leaching off what was left of life. But when Belle has the chance to return the
favor and do the same for Killian and Emma, she turns and walks away to go back
to Gold. You know, I’m starting to
wonder if Belle is going to turn villain at some point in the future. While I know that the show writers are
probably not going to go there, the fact that Belle continues to gravitate back
to Gold’s side even after he’s constantly lied to her and virtually turned her
into his mob wife does seem to mirror the way Regina kept being swayed back to
her mother despite how often she saw how toxic Cora was.

On the plus side, the Nevengers have finally started
figuring out (again) that they shouldn’t be trusting Arthur. When they give him the magic toadstool so he
can contact Merlin, Arthur insists on doing so alone, stating that he was
always alone whenever Merlin contacted him during his boyhood days. Of course, Arthur takes advantage of the fact
that he’s been left alone to simply toss the magic toadstool into the
fire. The Nevengers figure out his
deception when Charming finds the seared toadstool in the ashes later on. Thankfully, the toadstool wasn’t completely
destroyed by the fire and can still be used.
Now knowing they can’t rely on Arthur, they decide to turn to the only
other person known to have been chosen by Merlin- the current Author,
Henry. (Also good to finally have
confirmation that the Apprentice is dead, even though it is sad to hear). Henry, showing a great deal of emotional
maturity, is deciding to not let what he saw occur in Violet’s trapped memory
stop him from doing what he can to help free Emma from the Darkness. He knows he can’t hold whatever Emma does as
the Dark One influence how he views the real Emma. On that note, I am a bit bothered with how
everyone is acting like what Emma did to Violet in Camelot is the worst thing
ever. While I’m not saying it was a good
thing, it was nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff Regina got up to. It’s like the show is trying to say that
massacring entire villages, sending countless children to their deaths in the
cannibalistic Blind Witch’s house and making constant attempts on the lives of
her adopted son’s biological family, among other things, is completely
forgivable, but heart-compelling a girl to friend zone her crush is simply too
much. As for Regina criticizing Emma for
taking a young girl’s heart? Remind me
again how many hearts Regina had collected throughout the years. I’m pretty sure she still has that vault of
hearts in that hidden chamber of the Mills Mausoleum, meaning there’s probably
quite a few people with missing hearts running around. At least Emma gave Violet her heart back,
which is more than I can say for Regina.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t like double standards.

When Henry uses the magic toadstool to contact Merlin, all
they get is a magic automated message from the great sorcerer, instructing them
to seek out someone called Nimue. Before
he can go into detail, however, he’s interrupted by the fact that he’s already
been found by the Dark One. Which leaves
the Nevengers, and us, with the question of what happened to Merlin after he
left that cryptic message. I do hope
he’s not dead. I really like Merlin, and
hope he’s at least a recurring character from now on.

We get a short scene with Zelena, when Dark One Emma tries
to get her to agree to help her with something in exchange for the Apprentice’s
wand, but Zelena is all ‘not interested.’ But if there’s anything I care less for at
this point then Rumple/Belle, it’s Zelena.
Although, I did roll my eyes at Zelena claiming to have killed Neal. Because she really didn’t. He killed himself through sheer stupidity. Neal KNEW perfectly well he was walking into
Zelena’s trap, but he chose to do so anyway.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s his own fault Neal’s dead. To her credit, Dark One Emma seemed to give
off a ‘who’s Neal?’ sort of air when
Zelena brought him up. Which I totally
approve of, especially since this happened after Dark One Emma commented on how
she can relate to Zelena in the sense that she knows the feeling of being in
jail while pregnant. And we all remember
who was responsible for that, right?
You know, I would actually comfort hug Dark One Emma after this scene,
if I wasn’t worried she’d respond by turning me into a squirrel. Come to think of it, have we seen Dark One
Emma use magic at all during the Storybrooke scenes? I mean, apart from turning Sneezy into
stone. Because while she has performed
that whole teleportation thing, she hasn’t actively used magic since they all
returned to Storybrooke after the six week gap.
And that’s one more thing that seems to differentiate her from Dark One
Rumpelstiltskin, who frequently used magic every chance he got.

The final Camelot scene in the episode was a short moment
between Emma and Merlin, in which the former remembers their fateful encounter
at the movie theater. I’d question how
Emma remembers that moment from when she was six-years-old, but then again, I’m
sometimes surprised by some of the stuff I remember from my childhood. Although, that moment is made even better by
the fact that this is the same woman who questioned the possibility that Evil
Queen Regina would recognize her upon her arrival in Storybrooke if she saw her
face in the past. Obviously, you CAN
recognize a glimpse of someone’s face after thirty years. Merlin once again warns Emma to leave
Excalibur alone, or something bad will happen.
Which once again begs the question what got Emma to seemingly ignore
that warning.

All in all, this really came across as a filler episode to
me. Sure, some important stuff happened,
but it didn’t really advance the plot all that much. But I was kinda expecting that coming in, so
I probably shouldn’t be too disappointed.
But since the next episode pretty much kick starts the final five
episodes of the current story arc, I expect the plot to pick back up again
after this.

About Me

My dream is to move to England one day and write books for children and young adults. I am quite passionate about the environment and will get irritated when I see people throw plastic bottles and soda cans into the trash. I hold a strong love for animals and am greatly upset when I see people killing spiders or buying spring-loaded mousetraps. I am also a Christian woman, but please don't automatically label me as an overly-conservative Bible thumper.
Finally, I am offended by excessive swearing, particularly the F-bomb, which is why you won't see me using any of it in my blog.